Chapter 12 - Portsmouth (continued - Religion) from History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire From: Susan Sauve - ssauve@ecentral.com Source: History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and Representative Citizens by Charles A. Hazlett, Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill., 1915 Page 157 CHAPTER XII PORTSMOUTH-(Continued) The Four Meeting--Houses--The Glebe Lands--The 1670 Bible--The Brick Church Building, 1854--The Successive Ministry of the North Parish The Four Meeting-Houses--The following sketch of the four meeting- houses is condensed from an address delivered by C. A. Hazlett at the semi- centennial of the dedication of the North Church, November 5, 1905: The first building was the log chapel on Pleasant Street, near the Uni- versalist Church. The second was the meeting-house at the crotch of the roads near the south mill bridge. The third was the three-decker meeting- house on the parade. The fourth, the present brick church building. Besides the four houses of worship, there were several separations and divisions from the North Church. In 1706, the Greenland parishioners formed a new parish, dismission being granted on account of the long distance and the danger from the Indians while travelling the five miles to and from the Portsmouth meeting-house. In 1725, a meeting-house was built at the Plains and stood for twenty-three years, when it was blown down and the parish became united again with the North Church. Then, in 1757, the Independent Congregational Society was formed and, under the pastorate of Samuel Drown and Joseph Walton, worshipped in their building on the site of the present Unitarian Chapel on Court Street for sixty-five years. Another separation, or rather colonization, occurred from the then strong Mother Church in 1828, when forty members were granted dismission and formed a new parish, worshipping in their new brick building which they erected at the corner of Pleasant and Livermore streets, until 1836, when they united again with the old church. The most serious division was the first one in 1711, when there was a separation into two parishes, one continuing to worship in the old meeting- house at the south mill bridge until they built the new meeting-house called the "South Congregational Church," in 1731, placing it on Meeting-house HIll on the site of the present south ward room. The first house of worship in Portsmouth was erected about 1638. It stood near the Universalist Church, near the site of the Langdon house now occupied by Mrs. Harris, the great-granddaughter of Rev. Samuel Langdon, the fourth pastor of this church. The Glebe Lands.--On the 25th of May, 1640, twenty of the inhabitants Page 158 "of the lower end of Pascataquack" conveyed by deed to Thomas Walford and Henry Sherburne, "Church-wardens of this Parish," and their successors, the "parsonage house with a chappell thereto united, as alsoe fiftie acres of glebe land." "And forasmuch," the deed continues, ''as the said parishioners have founded and built ye said parsonadge house, chaple with the appurti- nances at their owne proper costs and charges, and have made choyse of Mr. Richard Gibson to be ye first parson of ye said parsonadge, soe likewise whensoever the said parsonage happen to be voyd by death of ye incumbent, or his time agreed upon expired, that then the parsonage presently and nomina- tion of ye parson to be vested and remane in ye power and election of ye said parishioners or ye greater part of them forever." The glebe land conveyed by this deed was in two parcels. Thirty-eight acres of it was "thus to be taken, that is to say, ye full tenth part of ye fresh marsh lying at ye head of Strawberry Banke Creeke, and that being meeted and bounded to take the remainder of the thirty-eight acres next adjoyning to ye said marsh." Straw- berry-Bank Creek is still known as "the Creek." The water tower and powder house is in about the center of the upper glebe land. In 1791 this land was sold by the wardens at public auction to obtain a means for building the parsonage house on Pleasant Street, now owned and occupied by Mr. Fred S. Wendell. The smaller and more valuable portion of the glebe was twelve acres in what is now the central part of the city. It is thus described in the town records: "The twelve ackers of land belonging unto the meeting house doth take its beginning from the great pine by the sayd house, west and by south towards Goodman Humpkins, his hous which he bought of Roger Knight, full thirty polls: from the end of the sayd thirty polls, up the hill, north and by west, fully fifty-six poll: from the sayd fifty-six polls end diu east forty-six, unto a forked pine marked with three noches: from the said forked pine, south and by east full forty-four polls, unto the before menshoned great pine." As the great pine and the forked pine and Goodman Humpkins's house are no longer available landmarks, the glebe may be described as a square lot of land, of which the boundary ran from the east corner of the North Church, up Congress Street, to a point a little beyond Chestnut Street, so as to include the Kearsarge House; thence southerly, parallel with Chestnut Street, to the South Millpond; thence easterly, passing this side the Universalist Church, to Pleasant Street, and up Pleasant Street to the east corner of the North Church. In 1705, at a public town meeting, it was "ordered to be laid out into house lots for peopling the town and that the advantage which arises thereby be for the benefit of the ministry," reserving a conveniency for a meeting house, courthouse, almshouse, and burying place. The rest was divided into fifty-one lots of about fifty by eighty feet each, and leases were made for 999 years at from seven to fifteen shillings per year. For many years the rents were collected somewhat regularly, but in 1788 many lessees owed for from twenty to thirty years' rent, amounting in all to £216. A compromise was made and nearly all paid up. In 1823, nearly half the lots were still under the leases with from $40 to $167 due for each lot. Suit was commenced against the delinquents. This action resulted in the collection of the rents due and also in the payments for the discharges of the leases. The writer, Page 159 a few years ago, found some counterparts of the leases that enabled him to draw the plan of the glebe lands showing the holders of the leases from 1709 to 1823 as printed in "Portsmouth Historic and Picturesque." The first minister in the chapel was Rev. Richard Gibson. He was of the Church of England and no doubt represented the religious views of the leading inhabitants at that time. He officiated in August, 1638, and continued until 1640. It is recorded in the provincial papers of New Hampshire that an inventory of goods at Piscataway, made July, 1635, consisted of "for religious use, one great Bible, twelve service books, one pewter flagon, one communion cup and cover of silver, two fine table-cloths, two napkins," all of which had been sent over by John Mason from England. After Mr. Gibson left Ports- mouth, the chapel seems to have been used, without any protest, in maintaining such form of worship as the majority of the inhabitants--that is, if the parish --saw fit; and that was the Congregational form. Then came James Parker, who was of the Congregational Church and preached for three years, and he was succeeded by James Brown in 1654. He, like Mr. Parker, was not an ordained minister. All the preachers in Ports- mouth down to 1659 held service in the chapel. Rev. Mr. Moodey and his bride began housekeeping in the remodeled chapel-parsonage, and it was occupied after his death in 1697, by the second minister, Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, until October, 1704, when it took fire and burned to the ground. His infant child, his mother-in-law and a negro woman perished in the flames. Rev. Joshua Moodey came to Portsmouth in 1658. He preached for thirty-nine years, except while imprisoned by Governor Cranfield in New Castle, and while absent for several years in Boston. He was a graduate of Harvard, as were all the early ministers here, and was offered its presidency but declined. The fourth minister, Rev. Samuel Sangdon, resigned to become its president, and his successor, Rev. Ezra Stiles, became president of Yale. Mr. Moodey wrote over four thousand sermons, and they were not brief ones for two-hour discourses were not uncommon in his day. There were no trolley cars to shorten the sermons or spoil the perorations, though probably the half-frozen audiences stamped their feet as the live coals in their foot-stoves ceased to burn. He was at first supported by the subscription of eighty-six persons. The change from Episcopacy to Puritanism in previous years was shown by the use of the name "meeting-house" instead of "chapel," while the term "warden" was retained for the officers of the parish. The title was used in 1640, when the glebe lands were granted to the church wardens. And, as in after years churches in other sects were required in town, the North Congre- gational Church, the Middle Street and Christian Baptist churches, the Unita- rian and Universalist churches, retain the same name for their officers, and annually--even to this year of Our Lord 1914, they have each and all chosen wardens; a peculiarity for which Portsmouth is noted, as it is for the celebra- tion of Pope Night on the 5th of November. The new meeting-house, authorized by vote of the town in 1657, is so minutely described in the Rockingham county records at Exeter that the vanished building could be drawn and illustrated as were the old State House Page 160 and South Meeting-house in the recently issued book entitled "Portsmouth, Historic & Picturesque." The contract specified that the new structure should be "forty ffeete square and sixteen ffeete wall plate high, a flat ruff & substanciall turrett with a gallery about it, twelve windowes, three substanciall doers & a complete pulpit." It was on the front door that wolves heads were nailed to secure the captor's bounty. As late as 1693 nine were paid for. A committee was appointed who concluded that the "meatest and most commodious place to erect the meeting-house is the little hill adjoyninge to Goodman Webster's poynt on the crotch of the roads;" that is, at the inter- section of South and Marcy streets. The panes of the windows were about four inches long and three wide, set in lead and strengthened by small oak bars on the inside. For thirteen years the windows were unprotected by shutters. Then the town agreed, in a very liberal manner, with the versatile John Pickering, for thirty shillings, to make shutters "to draw backwards and forwards, and in case it be too little, then the said Pickering shall have something more." A bell was placed in the tower of the meeting-house on April 18, 1664, undoubtedly the first in the state. In 1692, "it was proposed to the town whither William Wacker should pay for the bell whom he carlessly crackt. It was voted in the negative because he was poor. It was voted that the selectmen take care to provide a bell, and as for the hanging of him as they may judge most convenient." Whether the "him" refers to the bell or to the man who "crackt" it, the record does not plainly show. The bell the select- men "sent for to England" was removed with a portion of the old meeting- house to the south schoolhouse in 1732 and remained there until 1846, when the new Haven schoolhoust was built, at which time it was sold to George Raynes and hung over his office in his shipyard, remaining until 1870, when being badly cracked, it was sold to Andrew Gerrish, the brass founder, and melted down. A new bell was purchased by the North Parish in 1720 and hung in the 1713 meeting-house on the parade. In 1764, a century after the hanging of the first bell, the new bell was reported "crackt." But its end was quite dif- ferent, for it was "sent home to be run" and the vessel on which it was shipped was lost at sea off Cape Ann on its passage to England. The parish and subscribers bought a new one weighing eight hundred pounds. It was inscribed: "For the First Parish of Portsmouth in New Hampshire--Lester & Peck of London--fecit 1764." In 1854, this bell was taken down and hung in the steeple of the present church. Another century was just closing and the 1764 bell was cracked in 1863 and recast in Troy, New York, the city paying $493.81 of the expense. So for all the years from 1664, the curfew has, year after year, been heard in this old town by the sea, for we find frequent mention in the records, of the wardens being authorized "to allow the bell man for ringing at nine o'clock." At first there was no regularity in building the pews in the Mill Dam Meeting-house, as from time to time the leading parishioners were granted permission to build at their own cost seats for themselves in various parts of the house, of varying length and breadth, so the aisles ran among the seats. Page 161 and it was not till 1693 that the pews were made uniform, permission being first obtaIned to cut off the corners of the pews of President Cutt and Major Vaughan. In April of that year, at a general town meetIng, a vote was passed to regulate the seating of the people, and a copy of the originl docu- ment with the list of occupants and quaint location of the seats, can be read in the "Rambles About Portsmouth." It designates who sat with the min- ister in the pulpit, in the seat under the pulpit, and on which separate sides of the floor and galleries the men and women should sit. The back seat was left "for young people about fourteen years of age unmarried." Where the married ones of about 'fourteen years sat, the report does not say. " As for boys under that age (fourteen) they are to sit in the men's allyes and the girls in the women's allyes." That boys were troublesome in those good old days is evident from the frequent votes of twenty shillings and upwards per annum to various men "for to look after the demeanor of the boyes at meeting." From 1750 to 1771, three different persons were appointed to be in charge of the upper gallery in the Three Decker Meeting-house to keep the boys and negroes in good order. At that time there were 187 negro slaves in Ports- mouth. For more serious offences on the Sabbath day there were various modes of punishment. On the 25th of September, 1662, at a general town meeting it was "ordered that a kage be made for the unruly and those who sleep in meeting or take tobacco on the Lord's day out of the meeting in the time of public exercises." Not for nine years was the enactment put in force. Then the selectmen employed John Pickering to build a cage "twelve feet square and seven feet high;" also "a substantial payer of stocks and place the same in said kage, and build on the rough a firm pillory; all to be built and raised in some convenient space from the westward of the meeting-house." In 1669, there was "granted to Mr. Ffryer the town's right to twentie foote square of land neere the meeting-house to sett up a house and keep wood in to accommodate himself and family in winter time when he comes to meeting." It was customary in the early days of New England for small houses, called "Sabba-day Houses" or "Noon Houses," to be built near the church, with large fireplaces where the worshippers went before, between, and after services, to warm themselves or to replenish their foot-stoves with coals. It was not till Joshua Moodey had preached twelve years and gathered a congregation which could hardly find room in the meeting-house at the mill bridge, that steps were taken towards the formation of a church. The oft- quoted "Account of the Gatherings & carrying on ye Church of Christ, in Portsmouth, Anno 1671" can still be read in Mr. Moodey's own handwriting in the first volume of the church records carefully preserved in the safe of the First National Bank, together with his Old Bible.--It was printed in London in 1670 and Rev. Joshua Moodey wrote his name on the fly leaf 240 years ago. The leaves of the original printed book measured 3 3/4 by 6 1/2 inches, and each leaf was bound between two blank leaves measuring 7 by 9 inches, on which many comments and references were annotated by Mr. Moodey and subsequent owners. It was presented to Rev. Mr. Leverett by Mr. Moodey's son, Samuel, in Page 162 1717. Finally, after being owned by several ministers in other states it was presented to the sixth minister, Rev. Mr. Putnam, in 1821 and handed down by him to his successor. The first meeting-house on the present site was ready for occupancy in 1714. It was seventy feet long and three stories high, with two galleries one above the other and three tiers of windows, hence the popular nautical title of "Three Decker." The pulpit occupied the middle of the western side and was surmounted by a large sounding-board. A belfry was added in 1720, and in 1730 a spire was built 150 feet high. We are indebted again to Charles W. Brewster for the minute word de- scription in the "Rambles About Portsmouth" of the location and occupants of the pews in the Three Decker. Among the prominent pew holders were General William Whipple, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; Governor John Langdon; and Daniel Webster, who took a prominent part in parish work in 1816. Town meetings were held in this meeting-house until 1762, when the parish voted not to permit further public use of the building. The doors were locked, but the selectmen's warning had been issued; and the citizens, considering the meeting legally warned, made forcible entrance and transacted their business. For over a century there were no means of heating this meeting-house. Small square tin stoves filled with live coals were carried. In 1762, the wardens voted that "whosoever leaves any stoves in the meeting-house shall pay a fine of twenty shillings." Mrs. Ichabod Goodwin informed the writer a few years ago that stoves for heating the church were first put in in 1822, as we found afterward re- corded in the parish book. The next year the wardens paid John Knowlton $35.00 for an octave violin and bow. The introduction of a "big godly fiddle," as a Scotchman called it, was an innovation warmly opposed, and to some warranted the sarcasm of Rev. Mr. Milton, of Newburyport, who announced "You will now sIng and fiddle hymn number" whatever the selectIon was. Whether the viol gave satisfaction or not the North Church records do not state, but three years after, in 1827, an organ was bought for $800.00. One of the most distinguished ministries this church has seen was that of Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster, who served the parish with marked ability for thirty-three years. He was justly regarded as one of the greatest and most eloquent preachers of his day. When President Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789, he attended service on Sunday afternoon at this church dressed in a black velvet suit and heard Doctor Buckminster deliver a very excellent and appropriate sermon. Another distinguished listener, who fre- quently attended this church, was John Paul Jones while he was superin- tending the building of the frigate "America" in 1779. Many public meetings were held in this building during the exciting times of the Revolution. In 1761, the house was enlarged by adding thirteen feet to the western side, which gave the steeple a place, as Uncle Tobey wrote, "like a man's nose being on one side of his face," but it was not very noticeable till the old state house in the center of the parade was removed. Page 163 In 1806, the interior was furnished with a fine clock, a brass chandelier with three rows of candlesticks to compare with the old three-decker of a house; the walls and ceilings tinted with indigo blue wash; the seats painted green; and the high pulpit decorated with splendid crimson silk draperies. And when the sexton let go of the halliards and lowered the curtain from the great arched pulpit window at the west side, then it was that Uncle Tobey, to again quote him "thought that Solomon's temple might look as well but had no idea that it could look better." Subsequent alteration re- placed the chandelier by "a circlet of squash-like lamp glasses," which in turn gave way to gas pipes. In 1837, the house was remodeled at an expense of $5,800, and fur- nished with a single tier of windows, three on each side of the church instead of seventeen. The Brick Church Building.--on the site of the old meeting-house, the present brick church building was erected in 1854-55 at a cost of $30,000. The name "meeting-house" had been changed to "church," notwithstanding that Cotton Mather had written in Puritanical days that he found no just ground in Scripture to apply such a trope as "church" to a house for public service. THE SUCCESSIVE MINISTERS OF THE NORTH PARISH After the death of Mr. Buckminster, Rev. Israel W. Putnam was in 1814 installed and had a successful ministry of twenty years. His successors were: Edwin Holt, 1836-42; Rufus W. Clark, 1842-51; Henry W. Moore, 1853-55; Lyman Whiting, 1855-59; William L. Gage, 1860-63; George M. Adams, 1863-71; Carlos Martyn, 1872-76; Rev. Mr. Hubbell, acting pastor, 1877-79; William A. McGinley, I879-B9; Rev. Lucius H. Thayer, 1891-1914. The chapel on Middle Street was built in 1870 and the church has its parsonage on State Street. ROLL OF HONOR OF CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS WHO HAVE SERVED THEIR CHURCHES FOR A PERIOD OF TWENTY YEARS OR MORE IN ROCKINGHAM COUNTY Edward Robie, Greenland, ordained and installed February 25, 1852. William A. Rand, South Seabrook, commenced service January 27, 1867; ordained and installed July 9, 1875. Lucius H. Thayer, Portsmouth, commenced service November 1, I890; ordained and installed January 28, 1891. James G. Robertson, Chester, commenced service July 6, 1889; ordained and installed July 30, 1889. Albert H. Thompson, Raymond, commenced service May 6, 1888; in- stalled May 30, 1905. John A. Ross, Pastor Emeritus, Hampton, commenced service July 1, 1887; installed June 14, 1892. Theodore C. Pratt, Pastor Emeritus, Candia, commenced service May 22, 1892. ********************************************************************** * * * NOTICE: Printing the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files t other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIORto uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. * * * *The USgenWeb Project makes no claims or estimates of the validity of the information submitted and reminds you that each new piece of information must be researched and proved or disproved by weight of evidence. It is always best to consult the original material for verification.